I have a 220 watt Jebo that I bought for $25.00 used, it's now gutted for a project I'm working on, it's really very cheaply made but like many things can be improved if you're so inclined.

Heat is obviously an issue for these lights, the plastic cover for the bulbs can't even handle the heat the bulbs put out, which is intensified by the lack of ventillation. The idea that they could catch on fire doesn't surpise me at all, and it would definitely be an issue in terms of reliability.

That being said, I've done enough re-engineering in the past on other projects to know that the heat issues can be easily addressed and in correcting them, the reliability would at least be solved for the most part.

The biggest headache and breaking point in my opinion is simply the fact that you have to buy the fixture which comes with 10K and "actinic" bulbs, which are worthless for plants and buy new bulbs for them, and when you add it all up, you're well on your way to a quality retrofit kit from AH.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you're obsessed with improving things and you can get it cheap enough, consider it.

If you have a cover over your tank then yeah go ahead and remove the plastic cover. Its just a splash guard.
That will also help dissapate heat as well.

some sellers on Ebay of those fixtures will give you the option to select your bulbs. So if you do wind up getting one of these ask the seller if they will swap out the actinic bulbs for 6700 or 10,000K bulbs.

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